Like a Pro: Shorts Stories

The following is my column from today's TNH. Anything in brackets did not appear in the actual paper.

The following are true stories that I, or a close friend, was directly involved in. Out of respect for the victims, all names have been changed or omitted.

Last week, I woke up early one morning so I would be able to finish an essay I had due later that afternoon. I decided that I would be much more productive if I went to the library. I spent about three hours working on the paper before I returned to my dorm room around 11 a.m. There was one problem; I forgot that my roommate’s girlfriend was visiting for the day. As I opened the door, the three of us froze in place and I backed out of the room as fast as possible.

This is a prime example of why roommates should make some kind of code or signal when there is a young lady in the room. The old “sock on the doorknob” is an open invitation for floor-mates to mess with you; so take the time to make an arrangement with your roommate to prevent awkward situations. I guess the only thing that could have been more awkward would be if my roommate were by himself, which was the case with my last roommate. Three times.

My older brother goes to college in San Francisco and he has this friend who I will refer to as “Tom.” One night Tom was at a dorm party and he was very intoxicated. He decided to go smoke a cigarette outside. After he was done smoking he realized that he would need to have someone come down to let him back into the building. He decided that it would be better to climb the fire escape to the third floor and jump through the window to surprise everyone.

So, Tom climbs up the ladder and finds the window. He slings it open, jumps into the room and shouts “Hey!” As he does this he realizes that it was the wrong room and there is only a girl sleeping in her bed. The girl wakes up and starts screaming so Tom jumps back out the window and runs away to his own dorm. The next day there were fliers all over the dorms describing an attempted robbery by a 35-year-old fat, bald guy who climbed up the fire escape. This is how my brother’s friend came to realize that he looks like a 35-year-old fat, bald guy.

From this story we can learn that when drinking alcohol you should never be by yourself. If Tom fell he could have been badly injured. Also, do not encourage drunken people to do anything that could harm them or other people. Think of Tom next time you get the urge to climb up a building, because when alcohol is involved the best ideas are usually terrible. Drawing attention to yourself is a very bad idea, especially if you are underage.

This next story takes place in Montreal, a magical place where under-aged Americans can visit for long weekends. During a night of bar hoping around the city, a friend of mine was asked to leave a club for acting rude to a waitress. By the time we got our coats, he was nowhere to be found. He has a tendency to run away when he reaches a high level of intoxication, so we searched around a while and later returned to our hotel without any luck of finding him. We did not see him until the next morning when he arrived at the hotel wearing only a hospital gown and no shoes. Apparently he had passed out in the street and someone brought him to the hospital. When he woke up that morning he escaped the hospital without talking to any nurses or doctors. About a month later a $600 hospital bill arrived for him in the mail.

[Other bad ideas to do in Montreal... or anywhere for that matter

• lie down on the sidewalk and cry
• buy $50 tickets from a stranger in a club to that "awesome" party...
• play real life frogger with cars]

This is a prime example of why moderation is key because blacking out can be very dangerous. Our friend was lucky that the person who found him got him to a hospital. Learning your limits is a major responsibility to drinking alcohol. Of course my other friends and I should have paid more attention to how much we were having, but we were just out of high school and immature. I am not telling you to go out and drink, or not to drink, I am just saying that students should have fun but they must always prepare themselves to be held accountable for their actions.

Stay classy, not UMassy.